How other cities handle politicians behaving badly

TORONTO –  Toronto councillors have asked the mayor to take a leave of absence, they have tried to strip the mayor of his power, and have even turned their backs to the mayor, but Mayor Rob Ford insists he isn’t going anywhere.

While Toronto councillors may be growing frustrated with the lack of options to remove a sitting mayor plagued by scandal but haven’t been charged with a criminal offence, one province and a number of U.S. states have mechanisms for removing a mayor for misconduct.

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In Canada, British Columbia is the only province that has recall laws for provincial politicians, and for municipalities.

Quebec, which has seen a number of mayors resign after being charged criminally, passed Bill 10 in the spring of 2013 that gives Quebeckers the power to ask a judge to suspend a municipal politician facing serious charges.

In New York, Under Section 36 of N.Y. Public Officer’s Code “Any town, village, improvement district or fire district officer, except a justice of the peace, may be removed from office by the supreme court for any misconduct, maladministration, malfeasance or malversation in office.”

According to Section 36, the application to remove a “public officer” can be made by ” any citizen resident of such town, village, improvement district or fire district or by the district attorney of the county.”

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Steven M. Silverberg, a municipal lawyer based in New York, said that although the law is on the books it’s very rarely used.

“If It looks like if there’s evidence of misconduct a mayor can be removed,” said Silverberg. “I’ve been practicing municipal for 40 years and this has never come up.”

Silverberg said forcing politicians out of office in New York for misconduct is rare because they usually step down when facing a scandal.

“Here, if someone does something embarrassing they usually resign,” he said.

In other states, recall legislation can be used to remove a sitting politician.

A famous example of this happened in 2003 when California’s Governor Gray Davis lost in a recall election and  “The Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected.

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B. J Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois, said although Illinois doesn’t have recall legislation city mayors have been removed using the “disability provision.”

Gaines said the disability provision was created to remove politicians who suffer a medical emergency while in office and can longer carry on their duties.

“Selectively it’s been used for what the courts called ‘situational disability’ which is where a politician becomes so enmeshed in controversy it becomes impossible to carry out their duties,” said Gaines. ” The current attorney general tried to use ‘situational disability’ against Rod Blagojevich before he was impeached.”